naraburns nihil supernum
7mo ago
(text post)
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
Can anybody tell me about the validity of the claims that Islamic Palestinians have occupied this region for thousands of years? Like given a random family currently living in Gaza, when did they likely migrate there? 1000 years ago? It was there a more recent migration of people?
The sort of “we’ve lived here forever this is our land!” Narrative just feels to clean to me.
You’re not getting good replies, and it’s a bit of a hard question to answer honestly. The question itself is very politically loaded and thus politically incorrect to investigate, and so there’s a dearth of available quality information.
It’s clear that as Jews moved from Europe to Ottoman Syria and later to Mandatory Palestine, they brought jobs and immigration along with them. However, this process was spread over roughly 100 years, so it’s hard to find a peak. Looking at demographic estimates of the region, e.g. what’s on wikipedia you can see that the local Arab population roughly doubled in the 25 years prior to the war of ‘47-‘49. This is not impossible given a high enough birth rate and improving health care that came along with British rule, so it’s not clear cut evidence one way or the other.
Further complicating the issue is that migration out of Mandatory Palestine is not counted.
Some evidence of Palestinian origins are in their last names. Al-Masri (Egyptian) is a common last name in Gaza and southern Israel, where you’d expect it - but that doesn’t mean too much after a few generations. Along those lines are also Bushnak (Bosnian), Mugrabi (Magreb, like me!), Halabi (Syrian), and probably more that I’m not familiar with.
Personally, I think it’s less than half of Palestinians world-wide who are actually “originally” from that specific strip of land, meaning that the person who left in ‘47 had a grandfather born there too. But I also don’t think it matters that much, to be honest.
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Notes -
Can anybody tell me about the validity of the claims that Islamic Palestinians have occupied this region for thousands of years? Like given a random family currently living in Gaza, when did they likely migrate there? 1000 years ago? It was there a more recent migration of people?
The sort of “we’ve lived here forever this is our land!” Narrative just feels to clean to me.
You’re not getting good replies, and it’s a bit of a hard question to answer honestly. The question itself is very politically loaded and thus politically incorrect to investigate, and so there’s a dearth of available quality information.
It’s clear that as Jews moved from Europe to Ottoman Syria and later to Mandatory Palestine, they brought jobs and immigration along with them. However, this process was spread over roughly 100 years, so it’s hard to find a peak. Looking at demographic estimates of the region, e.g. what’s on wikipedia you can see that the local Arab population roughly doubled in the 25 years prior to the war of ‘47-‘49. This is not impossible given a high enough birth rate and improving health care that came along with British rule, so it’s not clear cut evidence one way or the other.
Further complicating the issue is that migration out of Mandatory Palestine is not counted.
Some evidence of Palestinian origins are in their last names. Al-Masri (Egyptian) is a common last name in Gaza and southern Israel, where you’d expect it - but that doesn’t mean too much after a few generations. Along those lines are also Bushnak (Bosnian), Mugrabi (Magreb, like me!), Halabi (Syrian), and probably more that I’m not familiar with.
Personally, I think it’s less than half of Palestinians world-wide who are actually “originally” from that specific strip of land, meaning that the person who left in ‘47 had a grandfather born there too. But I also don’t think it matters that much, to be honest.
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